Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1887-07-29
DYING FROM NEGLECT.
Inhu,nan Treatment Accorded Inmates
OF a Prison.

Inhnrnan Treatment Accorded Inmates
OF a Prison.
NEW HAVEN, Conn, July 2S.-An ep-
idemic that has assumed terrible proper
lions has broken out in the state prison
at .Wethersfeld. During the last three
heated weeks the prisoners have so gen
orally suffered from diarrheal disorders
and %dysentery that Wednesday the state
board of health vent to Wetbersfield to
take some action in the matter.
They made a careful examination and
found forty-four patients in the hospital,
which was full, every cot being taken.
Outside the hospital We're thirty eight
more, who had been taken sick during
the past week, and for whom there was
no room in the hospital. Eleven more of
the prisoners showed signs that they
would soon be down with the dysentery,
which is always u threatening disorder,
and thirteen more are in the first stages
of stomach difficulties. Altogether there
were found to be 100 prisoners who re-
CURED medical attendance. There are
emily 200 persons, male and female, in the
prison. In single day, the 18th of
July, the board learned no fewer than
forty-six were Frustrated with moro or
less violent incipient forms Of troubles
that finally resulted in dysentery, and,
after careful inquiry from the prisoners,
it was learned that all the inmates of the
prison had been fed on pork. The heat
at that time, as since learned, was ex-
cessiye.
1.-THE pork was in an unfit condition to
place before the dog said one prisoner.
1T had been nearly aweek In a hot room
after having been brought rom Hart
ford
1t also transpires that the prison is
very poorly ventilated. The cells are all
exceedingly damp. Six fires have to be
kept burning, hot as the weather, is in
the corridors iii a vain endeavor to dry
the cells. Several of the prisoners made
an attempt to tell the authorities of the
terrible condition of things, but were
promptly shut off.
DR.. Lindsey, of this city, president of
the state board of health, said to a CORE
sponGent:
"We found things in a terrible state.
1t was kept as secret as possible, but it
finally got to our ears. The water clos
cts were exceedingly offensive, and the
sanitary condition in general was some
thing worse than an Oak street tene-
ment. We shall do everything in our
power to check the epidemic. which is
really alarming. We have ordered that
every cell be given.a thorough treatment
daily to a washing in & solution of corro-
sive sublimate. The diet was not what
it should have been, of course, but /
don't care to say much about it Just yet.
Deaths will probably occur. The prison
fs:Slofe tiia;i full, and IN this very trying
weather the utmost thoroughness in
cleansing all the appliances for every
cell of the invisible germs OF disease
should have been observed. One case of
cholera or dysentery or any morbiic dis
ease will leave germs which nothing but
the most thorough treatment can kill,
and if not promptly killed the germs
from one such case can, and often does,
produce a number of other cases, and SO
the disorder becomes an epidemic.
Henry Kingdom, who was sentenced
March IL, 1881, to life Imprisonment in
Wethersfeld for killing his wife on Kill
bourn street, Hartford, died at the prison
from dysentery.